[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 161 (Monday, October 2, 2023)]
[House]
[Page H4936]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 AMERICA'S DAMS ARE TICKING TIME BOMBS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, we are going to pick up where we left 
off over the weekend, sort of the high school drama about governing the 
House of Representatives.
  We have some people who are playing with fire. We have watched them 
work to the brink. It happened earlier in the spring where we were 
dealing with the debt ceiling, and we are back at it now, dealing with 
what we are going to do in terms of funding the government going 
forward.
  We know where this ends. There will be an agreement in November or 
December or January that largely follows the outline of what we all 
agreed to do in the spring. Democrats, Republicans, and President Biden 
had an agreement that set the top-line numbers to be able to move 
forward with the budget.
  Ultimately, I think the governing wing of the Republican Party will 
come around and work with a unified Democratic Caucus to be able to 
fulfill the commitment that we made in the spring. Whether or not Kevin 
McCarthy is Speaker or not is largely irrelevant in terms of this 
larger issue. The governing wing of both parties will come together 
and, I think, will do what is right for the American people based on 
what we agreed to do months ago.
  In the meantime, we actually have work to do. There are issues that 
need our attention. In The New York Times 2 days ago: ``It's Only a 
Matter of Time Before More Dams Fail.'' We watched two dams in Libya 
collapse, killing more than 11,000 people. This should be a wake-up 
call for those of us in the United States.
  There are more than 91,000 dams in the United States. The average age 
is 61 years. For about one-third of those, the failure would result in 
loss of life and significant economic loss and environmental damage.
  The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act included hundreds of 
millions of dollars for dam safety, which was welcome, but a minuscule 
amount of what we need to do when there is about $76 billion of 
immediate need dealing with dam safety.
  There are some very cost-effective solutions. One of them we 
pioneered in the Pacific Northwest, which is just removing the dam. In 
2012 and 2014, we transformed the ecosystem of the Elwha River in 
Washington, the largest dam removal in American history, and we are 
currently working on an even larger project, with four dams being 
removed on the Klamath River in southern Oregon and northern 
California.

  Dam removal is much more cost-effective. I have worked on the 
Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to try to have a system 
where anytime a dam removal was more cost-effective than trying to 
renovate it that it would be authorized.
  We are looking at the changing landscape, the problems with the 
Colorado River, where the dams no longer have intakes where they will 
be able to get the water out. We are looking at dead pools being formed 
along the Colorado River.
  We have to rethink the way that hydrology works, the dam works. 
Climate change has radically adjusted our notion of what we can and 
should do with them for the future.
  This is but one example of a simple, commonsense, direct effort that 
we should take that will save lives, save money, and regenerate the 
environment, as we are going to see in the Klamath River Basin.
  Working with Native Americans on nature-based solutions for climate 
challenges, we are all going to be better off, and then we can perhaps 
stay away from the sideshows here that are entertaining but don't get 
us anywhere.

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